School board to honor Presidential Scholar, National Merit finalists

The Lawrence school board on Monday will recognize eight high school students from the district who are finalists in this year's National Merit Scholarship competition as well as three students who were nominated as Presidential Scholars.

The board meets at 7 p.m. Monday at the district office, 110 McDonald Dr.

The National Merit finalists include Julia Drahozal, Hazlett Henderson and Conner Murphy from Lawrence High School; and Adam Fales, Alexander heath, Caitlin Erickson, Katherine Guyot and Andrei Elliott from Free State High School.

The three students nominated as Presidential Scholars are Yu Kyung Lee and Luke Matthews of Lawrence High, and Guyot of Free State High.

The Presidential Scholar awards are sponsored by the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars and the U.S. Department of Education. The awards are given each year to as many as 141 students based on their academic or artistic achievement.

The National Merit competition begins when students take the PSAT/NMSQT exam their junior year of high school. Based on scores from selected questions on that test, some 16,000 students nationwide are selected as semifinalists in the competition. Those names were announced in September.

Semifinalists then advance to the final competition based on their academic record, SAT scores, their scholarship applications, an essay, and their leadership in school and community activities.

Starting in March and continuing through mid-June, approximately 8,300 finalists will be notified that they have been selected to receive a National Merit scholarship. There are three types of scholarships: National Merit $2,500 scholarships; corporate-sponsored Merit scholarships; and college-sponsored Merit scholarships.

In other business, the school board will:

• Consider sending a letter to the Kansas House Committee on Commerce, Labor and Economic Development opposing passage of H.B. 2085 that would amend the Teacher Professional Negotiations Act.